The bill has overwhelming support in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives with 111 co-sponsors. It was first introduced by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) in Nov. 2011, and promises that participation would be purely voluntary.

President Obama has threatened to veto the measure if passes the House and Senate.

"[T]he bill would allow broad sharing of information with governmental entities without establishing requirements for both industry and the Government to minimize and protect personally identifiable information," he complains in a letter, "[It] lacks sufficient limitations on the sharing of personally identifiable information between private entities and does not contain adequate oversight or accountability measures necessary to ensure that the data is used only for appropriate purposes."

One controversial aspect of the bill is that it would grant corporations who share personally identifiable information wtih the government immunity from lawsuits.

But where Rep. Paul and the POTUS may diverge in their criticisms is in their opinion of what to do. Rep. Paul would like to see the measure scrapped entirely. By contrast President Obama is lobbying for the removal of the corporate immunity provision. But he's also pushing for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to oversee the program, potentially handing it a host of private personal information on U.S. citizens -- a idea which would surely make Rep. Paul cringe.

President Obama wants to change the bill to pass the info through the Department of Homeland Security, which could lead to even worse privacy concerns [Image Source: CyTalk]

While some call the bill "worse than SOPA", the President's proposed changes could in theory make it more Orwellian in some ways, even as he removes other unpopular measures. In that regard it's hard to separate the fact from political rhetoric and see who -- if anyone -- is interested in protecting the privacy of the American people.

Republicans voted overwhelmingly today 248-168 in support to allow corporations and government to share information (including personal) more freely in the name of cyber defense (or can be sold to each other $$$). It is an expansion of government and corporations which I believe is not popular in this discussion.

Why, I cannot understand for the life of me has there been criticism in this thread against the President threatening to veto, and at the same time criticizing the bill?

It is just Jason Mick's ongoing hatred for the President. Jason inserts this specific political opposition into any posting that he possibly can. I have no idea what specific feature of the president that draws so much hate from him. It is turning a technical blog into a political one.

I have noticed this tendency but Jason brings daily tech click advertising. Feeding off this political bigotry puts milk in his fridge and unfortunately many people in journalism are the imams of perpetual distortion. Dan Rather had many negative opinions about this.

P.S. dont be discouraged by your rating. People here generally do not rate these threads on intellect but rather "my side, your side"....its nonsense.

What is the "far enough" part. From my understanding the President is concerned about the lack of oversight in the exchange of information.

There needs to be a system of checks and balance . This is why police officers get search warrants before searching your property, they need justifiable cause.

Now, again, the focus is just on the President......WHY? This is a Republican bill, not supported by all Republicans but it is by the majority. You neglected to mention this, who is your representative of your district? Will you change your support of him based on legislation he votes for or will you be loyal to "the party".

PEOPLE, if you want to make a change then hold accountable the people who are responsible and stop supporting these players strictly along party lines!

You are still neglecting to mention my point, its a REPUBLICAN BILL but more likely you will not hold those who support it responsible because you are very focused and politically charged in finding responsibility from the president.

From my experience, no amount of logical information will persuade emotionally driven decisions. It is a personality characteristic and you nor I have any control of this other than being aware of this tendency.

Who cares? Republicans can't force a bill past the President. Republicans haven't been in power since 2006.

I'm not happy about the bill, but I fail to see why I should focus on it. For every one bad move the Republicans make, Obama and his fascist cronies make 20. But nobody wants to talk about that.

The only reason Obama would veto this is because it came from Republicans, and HE would rather sign a bill drafted by the Senate that's ten times more costly and destructive. Nothing about his track record in the past 3 years would indicate he has any problem with expanding Government powers and increasing surveillance on our citizens. Unless this is an election year publicity stunt, there's no other explanation.

Meah you're way too preachy and condescending. You don't see the big picture at all here or what's at stake. You wanna ramp up the negative coverage on Republicans so Obama can slip into another 4 years of failure and ruin, be my guest. I wont be joining you.

I have innate values. I'm a Conservative, not a Republican. But none of those values will mean a damn thing if Obama gets reelected. There's nothing noble about going down with a ship, nothing at all.

Seriously though, winning debates is not the most important thing. I sense you are a concerned person, I just wish you would funnel this wealth of energy to something constructive other than "lets destroy Obama dab nabbit"!